Saturday, July 11, 2015

Not the fabric I meant to buy

The Chief and I took a day trip to Amish country on the way to a birthday party last weekend.  He wanted to look at furniture, I wanted to look for fabric for that cloak pattern I bought.  I did find some Christmas-red wool, but at $21 a yard, I decided to keep looking.  I wasn't really surprised to find that, this being quilt country, 99.99% of the fabric on offer was quilt fabric.  In one such shop, the Chief ran into Irene, a Mennonite quilt saleswoman par excellence.  She had him helping her peel back quilt after quilt in a big stack, told us the name of each pattern, pointed out all the features (different types of work, "every stitch sewn by hand") that made them special.  Funniest was that she kept warning us that if we didn't buy this or that quilt, someone else would.  She got to the Chief; we walked out of there with not just one but two quilts, when we weren't planning to buy any!  However, he did show his own shopping skills by asking if we could get a discount, since we were buying two quilts.  We didn't get the markdown he asked for, but we did get one.

We stopped at one last fabric store on our way to our hotel, where the Chief picked out some flannel for another pair of flannel lounge pants.  I also bought some lavender dotted cotton to use for the mock-up for my first Regency dress.  I figure if my maiden effort goes together reasonably well, I'll end up with two dresses - the practice model and the "real" one. :)

No comments: